The Lenten Resistance

Marcus J. Borg tells the story of a Buddhist who once quipped, “You Christians must be very bad people—you’re always confessing your sins.”

Lent is one of the places where the Christian emphasis on sin becomes even more evident – and for many of us, more problematic (I’ll have more to say about this over on The INTRAfaith Conversation blog). In no way do I discount the reality of sin and our need for confession. But each Lent I wrestle with finding a way to move beyond our fixation on sin and on the belief that Jesus had to die in order to save us from said sins.

So I want to give a shout out here to Rev. Mindi Welton-Mitchell at Rev-o-lution, a great resource for liturgy and sermon preparation. This year she had a really brilliant idea for Lent, which I am absolutely stealing (with attribution of course): “Revolution, Revelation, Resurrection: 7 Ways of Resistance for Lent”

I am so appreciative of this concept. Even if I don’t use all of the material or edit it to fit our community, I love the blending of our desire to
a) be a voice of faith in our political milieu, and
b) hear a word of hope and grace for our own spiritual nourishment.

It would be very easy to become so focused on our political activism that we neglect our spiritual health. Part of our Lenten discipline this year will be to resist – not only the temptations of empire, but the temptation to despair or the temptation to think we can do resistance all on our own steam.

So I created the above logo to reflect our way through Lent: the Star Wars symbol of the Resistance with the cross. Both Star Wars aficionados and Christians may be offended by this blasphemy, but for me it’s the perfect symbol of our Lenten Resistance. I hope you’ll join up!